The Department of Defense lists his place of birth as Sanaa, Yemen and his date of birth as January 30, 1968.
As of today, Abd al-Salam al-Hilah has been confined at the Guantanamo camps for 20 years, 3 months and 4 days. He arrived there on September 20, 2004.[5][6][7]
CIA detention
Al-Hilah was captured, in Cairo, on September 19, 2002, while on a business trip.[8]John Sifton, of Human Rights Watch, says that Al-Hilah disappeared, for eighteen months, before surfacing in American detention in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[9]
According to medical records published on March 16, 2007, his "in process date" at Guantanamo was September 20, 2004.[10]
Since his arrival in Guantanamo Bay, he is one of the approximately 200 detainees who has had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf. In recently declassified discussions with his lawyer, al-Hilah says that after his capture he was sent to BakuAzerbaijan for two months, and then spent 16 months in secret bases in Afghanistan, including "the dark prison".[11]
Official status reviews
Originally the BushPresidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[12]
In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.
Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[16]
Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are members of Al Qaeda."[16]
Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[16]
Habeas corpus petition
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2011)
Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman Al Hela v. George W. Bush had a writ of habeas corpus filed on his behalf.[17][18]
Joint Review Task Force
On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated, United States PresidentBarack Obama issued three Executive orders related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo.[19][20][21][22]
That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[23]
Abd al-Salam al-Hilah was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release.
Obama said those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board.
Periodic Review Board
The first review was not convened until November 20, 2013.[24] Hilah was approved for transfer on June 8, 2021.[25]
Hunger strike
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2011)
Al-Hilah was reported to have participated in a hunger strike that led to a deterioration in his health.[26]
Children's death
"His mother died, his father died, his two sons died, and now his uncle has died. Do they want us to all be dead before they bring him back home again?
On April 23, 2009, Yemeni newspapers reported two of the four children of Guantanamo captive "Abdul Salam Al Hilam" were killed, in his home, by the explosion of a hand grenade.[28][29][30]
The two boys were reported to be nine and eleven years old, and ten and eleven years old. They were reported to have died when playing with the grenade.
In 2008, camp authorities started to allow compliant captives to make an annual phone call home.
The Yemen Post reports that Al Hila's sons died just two days after his call.[30]
Assassination fears
On August 1, 2009, the Saba News reported that in a phone call after his son's death he told his family that he feared he would be assassinated in Guantanamo.[31] He told his family not to believe accounts that he committed suicide if he should die in Guantanamo.
On May 17, 2010, Saba News reported Al Hilah's family had recently received a letter where he wrote he believed camp authorities had a new plan to assassinate him.[32]
^ ab"U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
^Andy Worthington (2012-10-25). "Who Are the 55 Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners on the List Released by the Obama Administration?". Retrieved 2015-02-19. I have already discussed at length the profound injustice of holding Shawali Khan and Abdul Ghani, in articles here and here, and noted how their cases discredit America, as Khan, against whom no evidence of wrongdoing exists, nevertheless had his habeas corpus petition denied, and Ghani, a thoroughly insignificant scrap metal merchant, was put forward for a trial by military commission — a war crimes trial — under President Bush.
^
Kelly McEvers. "In Yemen, Anger Toward U.S. Grows Over Detainees". NPR. Archived from the original on 4 April 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-01. "His mother died, his father died, his two sons died, and now his uncle has died," Hila's sister says. "Do they want us to all be dead before they bring him back home again?
^"U.S. to try five Yemeni Gitmo detainees". Saba News. 2010-05-17. Archived from the original on 2010-05-18. Retrieved 2010-05-17. Meanwhile, Abdul Salam Al-Hila, another Yemeni detainee, has told his family that he faced a new assassination attempt at the U.S. Bay which the U.S. President Obama ordered to be closed as soon as possible.
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